"You’ll find other folk free wi’ their hands," Eliza stormed, "if you’re that free wi’ your impident tongue! Yon fool of an Elliman’ll stand no nonsense, for all he looks so new-milk soft! Not that he wants any truck wi’ you at all, as far as I can see. It’s Mary Phyllis he can’t take his eyes off, and no wonder, neither. She was always a sight better-looking than you, and she’s younger, by a deal. You’re that old and teptious you fair turn the cream sour just by being along wi’t in t’house! Nay, I reckon you can put wedding and suchlike out o’ your head as soon as you like! _You’ll_ never have a house of your own, or a man to put in it; and as for bairns o’ your own to slap, why, you’ll never have none o’ _them_...!" She said the rest to the closed door, a stout, oaken door which even she was reluctant to attack. In the few pauses that she allowed herself she could hear nothing inside the room, and presently, tiring of the one-sided contest, she waddled heavily away along the passage. She was in the dairy a minute later, and saw through the window the brothers yoking the old horse. Through the window, too, she caught scraps of their talk, and strained her ears eagerly to catch its bent. As if by magic the anger left her face, and a little smile grew happily on her lips. She even hummed a little tune to herself, as she watched and listened, leaning against the frame.... The silence persisted in the room that she had left, as if the air was so laden with words that it would hold no more. Sarah groped her way to the rocking-chair and sat down again to wait. Sally went to the window, and stared miserably into the yard. So they waited together until they heard the rattle of the wheels along the stones.... VII Even now, however, the Blindbeck comedy was not quite played out. Eliza had still to give it its finishing touch. The lately routed audience must have been conscious of this, for they assembled again in order to watch the Thornthwaites take their leave. As a rule, the Simons simply faded away, unperceived and unsped of anybody but Will. They were not welcome when they came, and they were not lamented when they went away. But to-day Sarah had managed to touch the imagination of the crowd, arousing unwilling admiration and even respect. The Addisons, for instance, though outwardly badly shocked, rejoiced by proxy in a crime which they would never have had the courage to commit themselves. Even Elliman was heard to remark that Sarah’s psychology seemed possibly worthy of study, after all. The main motive with all, however, was a sneaking hope that, on some ground or another, the opponents might go for each other again.